ECC Moving Forward with North Campus Expansion

This is such a short sighted move. It is amazing that leadership in WNY still does not get it.

Am I having deja vous? Is it the 1970s again?

Erie County competing against Niagara County is pretty lame too.

Chris "I've got the bigger podium" Collins strikes again!

Kewl. Let's also build the largest state university out in the middle of nowhere. Oh wait...

Giambra had the right idea. Save money by consolidating downtown.

I don't buy the argument that ECC is losing students to Niagara because of ECC's poor buildings.

When Collins has the chance, he likes to favor the suburbs. Doesn't seem to get the idea that the region's heart is in the city.

If it ain't downtown it's crap!

To those administrators whose downtown safety concerns have led them to this development, "Good Luck" with your students getting those Medical Campus internships.

Why is ECC building a new building on the North Campus site? I thought there was an idea to consolidate DOWNTOWN?? I suppose the Collins administration does not get it. The Downtown core will prop up the rest of the Buffalo Metro Area.

I guess we are in the same scenario when U.B. did not expand downtown also?? I suppose we have come full circle.

The square cars are a nice touch!

I'm surprised by this one, I thought the push to put it back in the city was pretty much agreed upon. Dose anyone know what the cost difference was between the two locations was?

They MUST build ECC in the city. We've lost so much of downtown to the 'burbs already. I bet rich Clarence residents like Chris Collins want to protect the status quo of suburban growth at the high cost of losing Buffalo. I think it is horrible that we have to pander to the whims of the suburbs.

With all of these comments saying they should be building in the city.... where exactly is there space? Sure, building in the city sounds like a wonderful idea, but where is there 100,000 square feet to expand the downtown campus?

And parking is a mess after 9AM at both campuses, but downtown would just be that much worse.

short-sighted idiocy.

This thread proves that talk of regionalism by many of the BRO frequent flyers is bullsh!t. You don't believe in regional growth, you believe in city over suburbs. The fact that the majority of the population live near this commuter campus doesn't factor into the argument, because you are pro-city and anti-suburb. So many of you can't see the big picture because you are blinded by your own agendas and ideology. It is a shame that you can't see the positive in this just because of the chosen location and your long held victim mentality. This is one of the things that is holding the City of Buffalo back from developing and growing. The same argument holds true for those who are still bitter about Geico, UB, Yahoo, Citi, and the like. Let's build the city based on the city's merits and strengths instead of getting your nose out of joint every time something is built outside the city line.

We shouldn't feel threatened by the suburbs and we shouldn't be fighting for breadcrumbs while other regions in the US are expanding rapidly. Let's look at the big picture for once instead of reverting to the woe is me mentality that is pervasive in Buffalonians, like Steel, Sin|ill, Travelrr, and others.

Chris Collins continues to hold WNY back with his total lack of vision and disregard for the future of our region. His narrow view and lack of political courage prevents him from doing the right thing for the people of Erie County. His legacy will be of protecting his wealthy suburban supporters while ignoring the city and the older first ring suburbs. He continues to squander every opportunity to lay the foundation for a better future and it will likely take years to repair the damage done by his administration.

Make no mistake: this is more of playing the politics of division, which the Collins camp masters. D vs. R, faction vs. faction, city vs. suburbs. Collins has told people point-blank that his suburban base doesn't care about the city -- so what does he have to lose by doing this--?

Check out the great writing on this issue in this week's Artvoice: http://artvoice.com/issues/v10n10/cars_and_college_students

The number of students/demand for space justify the expansion. Fortunatley for Erie County, Chris Collins is in charge and none of you are.

Interesting. The county claims to not have money for the arts and social services yet they can fund a major public project like this. So much for "fiscal conservatism."

if you think your county tax bill is too low, then by all means back this plan and vote for collins, because expanding 3 campuses instead of consolidating them is an excellent way to expand our tax burden.

For those of you who wonder why UB is in Amherst. Read this thread.

In the face of all kinds of aruguments suggesting it makes sense to focus our resources downtown, you will see that there are some folks that just don't believe it or that will not go out of their way to support downtown.

There were many voices raised in oppostion to UB Amherst, in the 1960's. But it just didn't matter. Politics and selfishness won out.

And now we see how it happens. On a much smaller scale, but analogous.

$5.7 MILLION is a lot of maintain 3 seperate campuses..then again so is 41 different towns and villages and more school districts than I can count.

The fact that he uses his mantra of running the county like a business and then pulls crap like this just proves this guy is a slime ball.

He trumps economies of scale except for when the answer is concentrating those benefits in the city. The land that ECC North and South is on is hight value high priced land. Sell that off, and consolidate downtown towards that east of the CBD. There is more than enough land. Those concerned with parking 5.7m would build a prett nice ramp JUST for ECC. I'd like to see the bill just for mowing these huge worthless lawns at both the surburban campuses.

I would love to ride to work with Chris Collins, watch the contempt on his face grows as he has to ride to his DT office. It is city vs. suburbs, because his policies are anti-urban.

For those who say oh the kids don't want to drive far. That argument would require all three campuses offering every course which is just simply not the case. My brother lived in Hamburg and had to drive to Amherst for all his classes. Also if an extra 15min. in your car keeps you from higher education, you probably weren't going to make it any way.

I will not be voting for Chris Collins again the guy is living in the 1980's

This will permanently kill the push to consolidate the ECC campus downtown. Once this $30 million expenditure is made, the debate is over. We're stuck with a three-campus system, with the smallest of the three located downtown, for the next fifty years.

The cost/consolidation argument isn't rational. In order for your fantasy down town campus to accomodate the current enrollment, it will require a massive expansion that will be larger and much more costly that this project.

It really is a shame that they could not have given the main city campus idea another vote. (speculating)

It looked like a far more courageous vision then the tic tac toe stagnation, but then again that is college life.

Stupid! Ignorant! What have they learned, nothing!

I don't see any good reason why all buildings of the _county's_ community college should have to be in the city downtown as Joel Giambra proposed. Having some of ECC be downtown and some of it be in the burbs is a good mix for the long term.

ECC North is in a well-developed, well-populated area, with good access by car and public transit. Adding this building wouldn't be "sprawl" as it's wrongly implied by the Artvoice article linked by RaChaCha.

This news ruined my weekend. I can't believe we are still making dumb mistakes like building in suburban swamps. ECC would have been a great addition to the rapidly expanding Medical Corridor or the Larkin Hydraulics District or even in the Central Business District. Isn't it bad enough that Medaille and D'Youville have expanded to the suburbs? When will it end, when there is nothing left downtown?

I am really sick of being held hostage by elitist rich suburbanites like Chris Collins and his posse of greedy friends. I bet if we dig deep enough we will find some connection between the land purchase, the architect, and Chris Collins.

Smart move. Yes, it would be better downtown, but can you imagine the problems? Can't tear that building down, it's Historic! No more parking, we have enough! Hate the design! It's not to the curb and no retail @ ground level! Then lets not forget the lawsuits that would start. No, downtown is not a very friendly place in the real word.

My issue with the project is it looks entirely too urban for the geography. I mean this would work fine in the city with it postmodern cubism design, but this is the suburbs. Boring it up a little and don't construct the buildings so close together, it would be faster to walk than drive to get between them.

Through all the BS Joel Giambra put us all through. The ONLY thing most of aggreed on was his vision for ONE ECC Campus-DOWNTOWN. Why nobody is pushing for that is beyond belief. A central one downtown makes more sense to me than having it out in the middle of nowhere. If you don't have a car, your screwed.

@STEEL - "ECC North is served by one single bus line and no highways."

There are 5 bus routes that service ECC North throughout the day. 47, 48, 49, 67, and 66A. Two or three connect directly to the metro rail station and at least four a day are dedicated routes to ECC North.

ECC North is 1.4 miles from the end of the Kensington Expressway, 2.0 miles from the Main Street exit of the 290, and 2.0 miles from the Depew entrance to the Thruway.

ECC North is also bike friendly.

hmmmm. ecc needs to expand. with permanently high gas prices and a shrinking tax base, further investment really needs to be at the centrally located core where we already have strong public transportation and a range of nearby housing options.

and now hsbc tower is teetering on the brink of vacancy. do i sense a possible two-birds-one-stone situation?

I'm glad we don't have a regional planning board to create transportation corridors and nodes of excellence. No need to create create synergies and critical masses.

I have blogged on various sites, mainly the BuffNews and WNYMedia (until I got tired of the high school insults) for about 10 years using the name "BobbyCat" - which is a nickname I was tagged with in 1st grade.

Recently I was told that some other person started calling himself "BobbyCat" on Buffalo Rising so I stopped in to investigate. This is my first post.

Hey buddy, what's the deal ? I have blogged thousands of words with my nickname and I although I have no trademark on it, it IS my name, and I resent you just taking it. Just so you know, I have probably developed more enemies than friends, so stealing that name might gain you some notoriety but not many friends.

I just thought I would let others know that the "BobbyCat" on BF is a fraud, but for whatever reasons, for whatever gain, I cannot fathom. I see that you're not a very good writer, so I hope you find your own name and stop embarrassing me.